2/05/2009

I will be coming up on my one year anniversary of this blog on April 5th. Honestly, I didn't think I would be going this long. I did all this on a lark after a couple of my “friends” pressured me to put my thoughts into a blog. So, I did just that. It started slowly at first. But, it appears that Alexa (which is a highly controversial way of determining rankings) and Google seem to like it. But, I have made mistakes in this blog.

One of those mistakes I feel is that chat box. I thought this would be a way for people to comment about this blog since it appeared I wasn't getting many comments after posts. Instead, that chat box has become a source of frustration to me. I don't mind people dropping by to let me know they were visiting or “smiling” at all. I appreciate my visitors. What I don't like are people advertising their product or site at my expense. I have deleted quite a few as a result. But, I have X amount of hours in the day to contribute to this blog. I have begun to give serious thought to just deleting the chat box once and for all. I just have not made up my mind as yet.

People asking to exchange links. I still believe this is overrated insofar as SEO. In fact, Google will punish you if you have too many links as they will think you are a link farm. If I exchanged links with everyone that has requested, I would have about 1000 links on both sidebars. Of course, I'm not going to do that. What people can do is leave a comment on a post linking their site if they want a permanent link here. I don't delete my posts. So, the link will always be there. I can understand people who are just starting out or are trying to improve their Alexa ranking or Google ranking (although I just have a PR3). But, I simply cannot exchange links with everyone. I do have about four of my favorite sites listed on the left sidebar. But, those are mostly for my benefit in that I enjoy reading their blogs. And now that I have posted this, it will be totally ignored, I know.

Problems. If anyone notices a problem...like a popup, something that is causing the site to load up slowly, please let me know about it. My email address is in the upper left sidebar. Or you can simply leave a comment after a post, if you prefer. I have been working to get this thing loading faster since there are still quite a few people who still have dialup access. But, there is just so much I can do. Blogger has some issues that simply can't be fixed just by me.

Also, this blog will undergo a much needed face lift in the weeks ahead. I have already changed the template on my other blog, “Diary: Alone on Earth.” Now, it is time, past time actually, to change the format on this one. If you have any ideas on what you think would be a good template, I would appreciate your input. It has to be 3 columns. I will not deal with 2 columns again.

Josh, I am glad you see my view point. It's not that I don't want to help people. But, space on these sidebars is valuable area. I don't see any difference in people leaving their link in a comment as opposed to leaving it on a sidebar. You are still linked in my blog. Thanks for your comment, Josh.

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About Me

I've been all over the world, albeit many years ago as a young sailor in the U.S. Navy. Divorced, been a blogger for 7 years now.. I sometimes do a little computer maintenance on the side to make myself some extra money since my retirement from the federal work force. I'm now exploring the "writer" in me that wanted to come out when I graduated from high school. Alas, there was this war in Southeast Asia and...in any case, I have published a novel in ebook format entitled "Diary: Alone on Earth." It is available HERE.